Bomber poured into my large Gulden Draak tulip, Extra Special Birthday is a dull mahogeny with a small tan head leaving scattered lace.

Smell is estery, bananas. A little simple, some hop spice as well, but I served it fridge temp.

Taste is also fairly estery, but there's also a firm hop presence, herbal, minty, English nobles probably. There's just enough amber maltiness to provide a little complexity, but it's clearly tertiary to the hops and yeast.

Mouthfeel is medium light bodied, a dusty dryness.

Drinkability is pretty good, it went down quite easily, and I liked the flavor profile for sure, full flavored, but balanced and smooth. Well done, they should bring this back, one of the better Redhook's I've had.

22 oz bottle from Safeway, S.Commercial,Salem. $4.59. Dark amber beer with a large cream colured billowy thickish head. Aroma is spicy/phenolic, some bubblegum and a touch of grapefruity hop Taste is somewhat the same but with a deep caramel/toffee maltiness under it all. Getting some extra peppery tastes too, not so much banana though! Nice inviting mouthfeel..very easy to drink but not at all simple. A very respectable cross over type ale.

First BA to review this one! Kind of fitting since Redhook ESB was my go-to beer for many years before I started branching out into just about everything else, almost exactly 1 year ago. Not to mention I live in Seattle, where Redhook was born. So kind of my craft beer birthday as well.

First of all... not really sure what style to list this under. ESB? American Amber/Red Ale? American IPA? English IPA?

According to RateBeer it's a Belgian Ale.

According to a recent BA post from RedHookAndy, who evidently is a brewer with Craft Brewers Alliance in New Hampshire:

"ESBB was brewed as a tribute to two beers. First of all, it is a highly modified version of our historic Redhook ESB. Second it is a nod to our Original Redhook Ale, the first beer we ever made, that local Seattle folks called 'Banana Beer'. This time we used a very rare and authentic Belgian Yeast Strain. Finally, we hopped it very aggressively.

"Think of it as almost a Belgian Red IPA!"

I'm going to list it as an ESB. It could also be classified as an American Amber/Red Ale, really a toss-up. But the label says it's "a highly modified version of ESB," so that's what I'm going with.

Now to my review.

22oz bottle poured into a tulip. Color is a deep, crystal-clear ruby/mahogany with a nice 2-finger beige head. This is a gorgeous beer to look at.

Aroma is kind of sweet with notes of over-ripe banana, spices, biscuity malt. Almost reminds me of a Northwest-style winter warmer.

Overall this is a good, solid brew - nothing fancy or complex but just nice and drinkable. It does kind of take me back to the early days of Seattle microbrews. Wish I could be enjoying a Sonics game at the Key right about now - or maybe the M's at the Kingdome...

I've been in a "ESB mood" lately and this is a beer I've never seen before. Perfect setup for a review.
I am usually on HIGH ALERT for anything that has Belgian yeast. I absolutely hate any beer that has a taste of clove /mothballs /insecticide.
This beer tip toes up to that line, but stops short of the nastyness I associate with Belgian brew by harboring hints of banana and prune juice and nothing more.
Pours as brown as a mix of 50% red and 50% blue would give you. Has a tan head.
Nice amount of carbonation.
There is enough bitterness and foreign tastes to make this one off limits to those who dislike strongly flavored beer. Even as an avid IPA drinker, this one has challenged me to open my mind somewhat to Belgian yeast.

Appearance: medium brown hue with a clear, haze-free body. head is two thick fingers of frothy ivory foam. A decent looking beer!

Smell: they were not lying about the banana. Thrown in with this is a strong clove aroma; the malt has a touch of citrus. Some hop vegetation rounds out the end. In a blind tasting I'd call this a dunkelweizen, no question. Not really to-style for an ESB, but it's not bad, either.

Taste: flavor is interesting; it starts off like a yeasty dunkelweizen, then flows into a hoppy pale ale, and finishes off with a musty yeast character I normally associate with dubbels. At the very end there is a dusty bitterness I usually associate with wet-hopping. I love the novelty of this beer, but I do find the execution a little bit lacking.

Mouthfeel: well, its texture is certainly Belgian in character. Medium body with a big carbonation and even bigger creaminess. I actually love the texture.

Overall: this beer gets points for style. I love the concept and I like a lot of its characteristics, although I do think it could be executed more cleanly, perhaps.

The nose is not isn't exactly what I was expecting... Belgian phenols... bubblegum... with some banana esters.... odd, yet pretty inviting especially given the lower price tag.

Wow... the flavor is very "BELGIAN"... Americanized and off balance ... but still very phenolic and ester forward... I need to start at the back because the bubblegum is HUGE in the finish.. clove oil is there and a nice punch of dry bananabread late in the palate... Early pale malts show a touch of toast... Weird... this brew is "backwards" from the front to the back. Nothing like I've had in a long time, and I am still pretty cool with it.

The palate is medium/lite with a nice everpresent carbonation...

This brew is no where near the English Isles....

Odd... very "American" ...Belgian.... Odd.... no doubt.. but still pretty interesting given the decent price tag.

Appearance is a dark amber brown holding a steady head leaving fair lace. Smell seem to have a balance between malt and hop with the Belgian yeast with a buttery note. Taste has the upfront bitter, spice from the Belgian yeast, sweet malt with a little bit of metallic in the back. Mouthfeel is medium - light that goes down slick with good carbonation. A different twist on an ESB that keeps the tastebuds guessing.

Appearance: (3.5)
- Pours a dark iced tea brown, rather clear, and has a finger of fluffy head that quickly dissipates to a thin foamy layer with some light lacing about the glass.

Smell: (3.5)
- Certainly has some prominent clove, cinnamon, Belgian yeast notes along with a sweet brown sugar and molasses malt base. Little bready and also seems to have an interesting nutmeg flare to it. Not overly hoppy by any means, but a grassy herbal hop presence does exist.

Taste: (3.5)
- Light banana backing to a relatively light brown ale of sorts. This does have a nice light and sweet brown sugar and grainy molasses touch to the flavor. Light grassy bitter hops, and an earthy touch balance it out. Really quite good.

Mouth Feel: (4.0)
- A rather light to medium bodied beer with a bit of a chewy touch. Also a touch cloying and drying as well from the bitterness. Perfect carbonation, and very easy to drink.

Overall: (3.5)
- If this beer goes as far back as the early 80's, then this must have been one of the best around back then. I know Redhook was a much bigger hit back then with beers like this. This beer is solid, balanced, and has it's highlights.. but a few characteristics of it bring it back down to mediocrity. I would drink it on tap somewhere maybe.

The beer pours a fairly dark, copper amber color, with pretty good head retention and lacing. The nose really comes across as an ampped up ESB, a style that I confess is not among my favorites. In any event, I get considerable butterscotch, light brown sugar and citrus, in a beer that smells as if it will be on the sweet side. The flavor profile replicates the nose, and while it's OK, the finish seems a bit off and almost slightly skunky. The label indicates that a belgian yeast strain was used in this beer, and frankly, the beer has that kind of funky flavor to it. I'm not sure it works all that well in an ESB, though it's not terrible. There's something of a banana flavor to this beer as well, which apparently is something the brewer was going for. Again, I'm just not sure how well that goes in an ESB style beer. Mouthfeel is medium bodied in this well carbonated beer, and the finish is long, spicey and fairly bitter. Alcohol is well integrated into the flavor profile, and drinkability isn't bad.

An interesting beer, and one I found that tended to open up more and more the longer it sat in the glass. While not really my cup of teaI guess, I was still happy to have the opportunity to try this one.

Bottled on Jul 25 11. Cold 22oz bottle served in imperial pint glass. Beer is a deep red amber with a thin off-tan head. Aroma is slightly sweet, though not quite caramel or candyish. In the mouth it does have that vaguely hefeweiss yeasty aroma, but (fortunately) I wouldn't go as far as calling it "banana beer" as the label suggests.

Flavor is subdued with a moderate to heavy dose of English hops, chalky malt, and a spicy edge. Not a particularly great example of an ESB, and too carbonated in this form. And not a particularly great beer all around, but a solid B- brew.